One of the joys (for me) of living in Chicago (or any big city and I’ve lived in a raft of them!) is having access to a preponderance of ethnic supermarkets. Within 20 minutes of me, I can partake of markets dedicated to Italian food, Indian, Asian, Polish, Ukrainian, Spanish, Middle Eastern, and Greek.

It’s that last one that I visited most recently, Spartan Brothers Grocery, in the outer reaches of Chicago, but prior to the burbs.

They’ve been around for fifty years, and have a wide variety of Greek staples, canned and boxed good, as well as frozen entrees from large manufacturers and made in-house.

Through a back window in the shop, you can see hanging carcasses of goat and lambs, so they get busy here, making entrees and sausages, It’s sausages that I have come for.

I first ran into Loukaniko (there are apparently different spellings) sausage at a Greek fest in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles maybe thirty years ago.

It’s a lamb sausage that is mildly spiced, but an unusual feature is that it commonly has citrus zest as an ingredient, which makes it have a taste that I can only describe as “bright.” If you order it in a Greek restaurant (and Chicago has dozens and dozens), it’ll come on a platter with lemon slices usually, which further amplifies the citrus flavoring.

I like it a lot. Spartan Brothers sell theirs at around $4 a pound, the ones I bought were out of the freezer in a two-pound pack. They make them in-house.

A refrigerated deli counter has imported cheese, olives and other goodies.